The modern communications era has brought about a tremendous expansion of wired and wireless networks. Computer networks, television networks, and telephony networks are experiencing an unprecedented technological expansion, fueled by consumer demand. Wireless and mobile networking technologies have addressed related consumer demands, while providing more flexibility and immediacy of information transfer.
Current and future networking technologies continue to facilitate ease of information transfer and convenience to users. One area in which there is a demand to increase the ease of information transfer and convenience to users relates to simplifying human/machine interfaces. As the range of activities accomplished with a computer increases, new and innovative ways to provide an interface with a computer are sought.
The most common way by which a user interfaces with a computer has been by direct mechanical interaction. Examples of such man-machine-interface apparatus include keyboards, switches (e.g., buttons), wired and optical mice, track balls, optical pointing devices, touch-sensitive screens, infra-red remote controls, and more recently, position- and acceleration-sensing gaming controls moved in space (e.g., with a hand). Each allows a user to mechanically provide input to a computer via mechanical interaction (e.g., a touch event) involving a hardware device, with the mechanical interaction being subsequently converted into electronic signals.
Voice recognition systems can receive computer input without tactile mechanical manipulation of a hardware device, making use of sound waves to discern input information. Motion sensing devices have been used to provide a digital input such as the detection of a threshold quantity of motion that triggers responsive computing activities (e.g., alarming functionality). However, motion sensing devices have been rather indiscriminate in simply detecting existence of motion associated with a space monitored by the motion sensing device, rather than attempting to derive a further information from the detected motion.